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Guest speaker Billie Yocky wrote:
Dreams are lovely things.
Sleep pulls us into its somber arms,
and coaxes our eyes closed.
We are never prepared for the
destination that we arrive at,
yet are fully prepared for the trip.
We touch the faces of flowers
whose petals don't truly exist --
Kiss the lips of strangers we will
never meet --
Dance to music that to our ears
will never be.
We're going somewhere without going --
and returning with a part of ourselves
that will never be the same.
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Resonate, by Angie Hunter
A call to words 2011
I walk this path
next to the cold creek
and resonate
with the song of the water.
With the wind
that dances through the rocks
I step
from shade to sun.
Under tall trees
in full summer bloom
I ring
with the tones of the birdcall.
As I watch the clouds
flow across the deepening blue,
I turn back
and head home to you.
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Carol Kennedy wrote:
The beauty of a dream
escapes the soul's surrender
of its deepest sadness
The downcast head
awakens a memory
yet untold
Just as the hot breath of
the beast
Heats the soul of
your heart
You may drown in
waking waters
and perhaps a happy hour
greets the nicest dawn.
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Feeling Breath on Her Bare Neck -- Serena's Song
by Lee Cable
She awoke in the early morning, before the sun had risen. Its rays were just a faint glow above the mountain ridge. And she stretched lazily in the new-mown hay. Without a sound, she tried to stand on her trembling legs but they just wouldn't support her. Not yet. So she nestled closer to her mother, who was still sleeping, nuzzled her neck and waited for a response.
It wasn't long before her mother awoke. She was quick to rise in one swift, practiced motion. Towering above her newborn, she licked the glistening goo from every part of her baby's hide. The look in her eyes urged another try at standing.
This time, the wobbly foal made it, standing awkwardly but growing more confident every moment. She felt her mother's approving breath, prodding her to continue to take first one step, then another. The movement was awkward, tentative, but soon they had reached the big, wide open door. And the world lay outside the barn -- a world of awakening pink light on fields of green grass and trees and streams -- just waiting to be explored and smelled and tasted!
And so began the first day of life for a newborn foal, whose promise was etched in her bloodline, whose courage was drawn from mother's breath on her damp neck and whose destiny was to be named Serena's Song, the only filly to bring home more than three million dollars in lifetime racing earnings.
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Feeling Safe
by Maggie Grinnell
She felt that she was drowning in her own bed.
She knew she had to cling onto something in order to make it out alive.
When all hope felt lost, she found herself, not in he bed, but on her
childhood street, in the middle of the road.
Shivers crawled up her arms as she realized she was all alone
This must be a dream she thought as mist rolled in around her.
She felt a wave of sadness engulf her.
No help was coming.
All she needed was another bring or even a creature which she
would take at this point, to guide her to safety.
She closed her eyes in hopes that she would be safely back in her bed.
When she opened her eyes, she was not in the street, but she wasn't in
her bed either.
She was in a building, a house, surrounded by others, all writers.
She didn't need to close her eyes again.
She wanted to stay because she felt safe.
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Don Knight wrote:
Dreaming is common to mammals. The first to dream was a critter like a shrew, or a mouse, who evolved into us. Our experience of dreaming goes all the way back, a hundred million years, or two. We spend our time thinking about different things than the shrew though about. We don't have to run from dinosaurs. But something of our experience is the same.
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Arthur Cover wrote:
My dog dreams. For her every dream is the first time.
What does she dream about? Chasing rabbits? Eating milkbones? Raiding the catbox? Who knows? She doesn't tell me.
Is it possible her mind has reached back into some canine Jungian racial memory – that when she dreams she envisions herself a stealthy mighty hunter chasing down gazelles on a grassy plain – that she is the bitch leader of the pack like a transsexual version of Buck in The Call of the Wild – or that she dreams of being a dog in the future - a leader of the underpeople like D'Joan or those underpeople evolved from dogs who see a human for the first time in a thousand years and just want to luv her – or is she one of the dogs in City, where mankind no longer exists and only robots are dogs' companions?
It's possible – though with the name Ripley she's more of a cinematic dog rather than a literary one. All I know for certain is dogs dreamed long before men dreamed. Perhaps the first dog to dream dreamed of a man throwing a frisbee.
That's it. Just so you know, in addition to Jack London the other literary references are to works by Cordwainer Smith and Clifford Simak, two science fiction writers.
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LISTEN, by Charlie Downing
Listen once or listen twice
Oh, what the hell. I'll listen thrice
Don't know why I even bother
Never listened to my father
In one ear and out the other
Never listened to my mother
Now my kids, THEY never listen
And its ME that they are pissin'
May they learn from their mistakes
For all of us, that's what it takes
Just need to last a little longer
What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger
Truth's a hard, hard pill to swallow
Shouldn't tarry, shouldn't wallow
Sorry mom and sorry dad
I should've listened...just a tad
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Debbie Thomas wrote:
Words that stood out for me while the poem, “The First Dream” by Billy Collins, was read aloud: wind, fire, mist of lake, alone near water, terribly alone.
Now write for 20 minutes.
Fire and wind. Those words alone stand out for me though I continue to listen to the lovely description of the wonders of the first dream. My mind is two places at once. Here, listening. There, remembering.
Fire Mountain. My sweet Arabian horse who loved the wind. Most horses are fearful and spook easily in wind. But Fire—a senior in his twenties when he became my first horse—would buck and strut and gallop, like a three year old, when set free in the arena on windy days in Chatsworth.
What possessed me to learn to ride at fifty is beyond me, but meeting Fire clinched it. He was my lesson horse, a former Western Pleasure show horse in younger days, who would strike a pose the minute he entered the arena. So proud. So regal.
When his owner asked me if I’d like to have him, I was thrilled. Yes, to her he was a twenty-one year old horse with arthritis—no longer of any use. But to me, he was the most magnificent creature I’d ever set eyes on: Flaming red, with a long, luscious mane and tail to match, and a gentle, patient teacher as well. He taught me everything I needed to know about riding. For more than eight years, he was the center of my life. My weeks planned around him--after work and weekends. He was my personal trainer, yoga instructor, and therapist all in one.
When Fire became progressively lame, the vet said if I continued riding him, I’d shorten his life. So I stopped. Instead we walked together side by side up and down neighboring streets. What a joy that was, just the two of us, his head bobbing beside me, his large soulful eye turned towards me as I chatted away or sang to him.
I lost him this summer. He would have been thirty next March—a day I imagined celebrating with pomp and circumstance. I thought for sure I’d have him a few more years. But one lovely August day, so unexpectedly, he collapsed and died. We’d had a great morning together. I groomed and walked him, tucked him in with carrots and feed, then kissed his nose and said, “See you Friday.”
Then at 4:30, a call: He’s gone. He was standing at 4 PM waiting for his dinner, then minutes later, down and gone. I was stunned. And yet, it was quick. No prolonged suffering. No difficult decision to put him down. A blessing of sorts.
So now when the wind blows, as it does with great force up here in Lake Arrowhead, I smile. I can see him—my precious Fire—tossing his head and running for joy into the wind.
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Midnight Call, Lakeside
by Kathy O’Fallon, October 25, 2011
Whatever you want, she says.
Easy to be flippant
when you’ve landed on the moon.
But she means it
in a way that reminds me
she got herself there.
What do you really, really want?
Are you brave enough
to find the answer?
And if you do,
what will you sacrifice
to live the answer?
The autumn wind silent,
no help from the new moon,
leaves busy mulching,
the smooth, soaked rock
too wise for words. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
From guest speaker Billie Yocky
I want to know you...
want to crawl around inside your thoughts
and peek into your dreams.
I want to feel your happiness
simply by looking into your eyes...
I want a piece of your past, a moment of your time,
a glimpse of your soul
to tuck beneath my pillow as I sleep.
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Richard Lavin wrote:
I fell in love with her sadness;
Goddammit,
Because I was complicit.
Not that it was just me that brought on her tears;
But I came to our last meeting—
There in that mini-mall-barroom,
With the ballgame flickering above us
And the waitress prancing about
In her oh-so-tight top—
I came there ready to throw ice water
All over her heart.
Oh, I’d seen the signs;
I knew she was going to give me my walking papers.
I wanted to draw first blood
—You-can’t-fire-me-I quit—
But then she told me her secret;
Why she couldn’t love any man
—not just me—
In the way a man wants to be loved;
In the way a woman wants to make love to a man;
What the cancer had done to her.
And that’s when this fool went from anger to love.
How often has that happened
When two people have said goodbye?
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David Grimshaw wrote:
Jimmy was relaxing in the shallows of Lake Poynette after a big picnic lunch when he drifted off to
sleep face down in the tepid water. The mud oozed between his toes, warm and smooth.
A dream shimmered while he floated farther from shore, thoughts of playing ball with his younger
brother on the beach.
Suddenly the reverie ended as he woke up on the beach with his grandmother pumping on his chest.
Spitting water and coughing, he sat up and heard the old lady complaining that she didn't know how
to swim and had walked out over her head in the lake to rescue him.
"I promise," said Jimmy, "I'll never fall asleep in the lake again."
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